Bill Murray And The ‘Isle Of Dogs’ Cast Explain Their Dog Characters As Dogs

Wes Anderson’s quirky and comforting charm is consistently supplemented and bolstered by his cast. Bill Murray and Bryan Cranston just say Anderson’s words really, really well. And for some reason, they sound even better when they’re coming out of a stop-motion animal whose eyes go wide when they want to stress an important point about dog flu.

So with Anderson’s second stop-motion adventure releasing on March 23, the cast of Isle of Dogs got together to not only discuss their dog characters but the actual dogs in their lives — as dogs. According to Vulture, who exclusively released the clip, Anderson had to get the cast to record these little snippets of doggie backstories whenever they could. Which is why Murray sounds like he’s in his car (he was), and Ed Norton had microphone trouble, which is kind of explained away with a scrappy boom mic in the clip.

“When it comes time to do an EPK for a movie like this, you don’t have a bunch of people sitting around on the set in costume that you can pull aside for interviews while they’re waiting for the next shot. So each of the actors did an interview and answered questions on their own — some recorded themselves on their iPhones — and we spent the next several months figuring out how to make those into the cast interviews.”

As far as ad-libbed, stop-motion cast interviews go, Jeff Goldblum beatboxing a Duke Ellington song as his collar jingles is up there.